Posted by munificentexegete on February 16, 2007, at 5:48:16
In reply to Re: low dose risperdal -- linkadge, posted by med_empowered on February 15, 2007, at 16:34:32
> I think its good that scientists have tried to develop safer, better drugs for schizophrenia BUT I think to truly help "schizophrenics," we're going to need to move beyond our concepts of "mental illness" and definitely get past this idea that blocking dopamine is **the** way to help people who have psychosis.
true, what about if we redefined schizophrenia as an overactivity of the dopaminergic system? Then they could test for it, and treat it with antidopaminergic meds.
> What I find ridiculous is that when someone sees a shrink--even voluntarily--they go from being "people" to being "patients". Suddenly, problems or undesirable behaviors/thoughts are "diseases" or "symptoms" or "conditions," and psychiatry is really into this idea of maintaining people--there's not much room allowed for recovery, or even allowed for the possibility that thoughts/behaviors might be understandable reactions to a given situation. In fact, in my own experiences, I've found that there isn't much attention paid to a patient's life at all--its assumed that the unwell will always be unwell, and that the best that can be done is to drug them up into a state of either semi-wellness or at least less disturbing un-wellness. The problem is that behaviors are not diseases, and thoughts are not diseases, yet these are the criteria by which people are "diagnosed" and turned into "patients". I imagine with more minor diagnoses--anxiety, panic attacks, some forms of depression--there is more attention paid to patient's lives, but once a line is crossed into bipolar/schizo-land, its all symptoms, symptoms, symptoms, and drugs, drugs,drugs.
> Neuroleptics are still damaging and toxic and the incredible dishonesty surrounding their widespread use is appalling. We have kids taking them for ADHD, people taking them for anxiety, for sleep, for depression, for bipolar disorder...we have "schizophrenic" patients being loaded up on high doses, or sometimes given complex cocktails with multiple antipsychotics plus various other drugs. Its madness, pure madness, and it costs money and damages lives.I get the feeling with the current approach every single human being qualifies for a diagnosis of a significant number of the illnesses in the DSMIV, including bipolar and schizophrenia. It's not uncommon for some patients to obtain at least half a dozen to a dozen different diagnoses in quite a short space of time without a single diagnostic test or scan showing an abnormality; how often does that happen with regular medicine?
poster:munificentexegete
thread:730044
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070213/msgs/733248.html